


foaming sky

by falooda



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Long-Distance Friendships, M/M, SofA 2020, Timeskip/Future, brief glimpses of hinata and ushijima, disarming amounts of introspection, spoilers for chapter 370 onwards
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:20:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25674970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falooda/pseuds/falooda
Summary: “Oikawa,” Hajime’s tinny, exhausted voice creeps into the grey morning. “It’s four in the morning.”“I’m leaving today, Iwa-chan,” he says, like he doesn’t know Hajime’s going to come see him off at the airport.“Your flight isn’t for another nine hours. Go. To. Sleep.”In which Tooru and Hajime drift apart and together over the years.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime & Oikawa Tooru
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3
Collections: Seasons of Anime Exchange 2020





	foaming sky

**Author's Note:**

  * For [maridoll](https://archiveofourown.org/users/maridoll/gifts).



> hello che!
> 
> happy sofa exchange day i hope you enjoy this fic! im aware you asked for a fic that could make you laugh and im not certain i delivered on that front but i do hope it makes you smile!

“I exist in two places, here and where you are.” 

\- Margaret Atwood. 

🌱

* * *

TODAY, YOU ARE THE DEFEATED. WHICH WILL YOU BE TOMORROW?

* * *

San Juan is much colder than Tooru expects.

He’s waiting on Blanco to pick him up at the airport and he can’t help but muse on the kind of choices he’s made for himself. 

He admits in the secrecy of his heart it’s not the most ideal of ways to have finished his high school volleyball career but somehow, though he’d cried his heart out, he could not bring himself to regret it. And so their jerseys, seafoam green like the waves that reckon with unshakeable rocks, like the new winter saplings, will return anew, ceaseless. Of that, he is sure.

Or, it’s what Tooru had told their juniors who’d hung onto his every word. It’s true he is as flippant as they come, charming and shallow to the brim. But they’d seen him play, and through losses and wins in these three years, he’d gained their unshakeable respect.

Whether they believed him or not was fair game to wonder.

But in the heat of the moment on the court when he’d thanked their supporters for their support in all his years here, and in the humid night after the game on their way home, when he’d whispered it to Hajime, Tooru had believed it.

After their loss, Tooru had wondered briefly about the very nature of volleyball. He’d pretended to be caught up in the thread of self-doubt and conjecture but he’d known, deep down, there is nothing more he wanted than to stand tall on the court and play some more, for longer, for as long as he can, even if it was for just one more second. Just like he’d always wanted.

He’d found help, through a meandering game of telephone, and he’d come face to face with Jose Blanco. In retrospect, he’d probably deserved the talking to he’d received that day.

“What do you mean,” Coach Blanco had asked, playing along. “You think you’re at the best you could ever be? Or are you saying you’re done learning all you can to stand on the court for even another second? Do you think it’s that easy to give up when you know there’s someone you can’t beat, no matter how skilled you are or how hard you work?”

Hajime had said something similar to him that night, in lieu of his own thank you to Tooru for the last three of his years in high school volleyball, for the last six as a formidable force on the court, for a whole lifetime of being a definitive unit.

The sky had pressed close to their hearts, the weather under their feet, their world two people large.

🌱

It’s funny how Hanamaki has always had a sixth sense for Tooru’s sentimental outbursts, of which there were surprisingly, in varying degrees of intensity.

“Oh no, don’t say it, Oikawa Tooru, I’m going to _strangle y—_ ”

Before he could slip under the net and make good on his promise, Oikawa had already slipped out of his number 1 practice jersey and practically screamed his thanks at them.

“Fuck you,” Hanamaki had said, through his tears. Hajime had agreed sincerely, and they’d collectively group-hugged their captain who’d lead them through their rise and fall.

🌱

Tooru bids farewell to his jersey exactly six months before they graduate. The number one that had his back is no longer his to keep. And it’d be a very long time before he could call it his again.

And just like him, Hajime gives the ace number to his successor. But unlike Tooru, he knows he’ll never wear it again.

It’s fine, Hajime thinks earnestly, staring at the back of Tooru’s head, he’d meant it when he’d told Tooru he was proud to have called him a teammate and partner all these years. But he’d also meant it when he said if they found themselves separated by a near two metres of net, he’d crush Tooru into the dust.

That’s just who they were, their essence always circling the other’s, pulling away and snapping back, again and again and again.

* * *

A JOURNEY OF A THOUSAND MILES BEGINS WITH A SINGLE STEP

* * *

The day Tooru had heard from Coach Irihata, who’d heard from his friend, who’d heard it from his neighbour that Jose Blanco was due to return to Argentina in four months’ time, he’d spent the night in a state of fitful sleep. 

He’d given up halfway through the night and he’d spent the better part of that weekend looking up UCPN San Juan and wondering if this was just part of a surreal dream he’d find himself waking from and forgetting instantly.

He’d walked into Blanco’s office on Monday morning, brazenly having skipped school and begged Hajime to show him the history notes he will have to no doubt have to cram later for a test.

Five hours, a couple of phone calls, and a substantial show of his determination later, Oikawa Tooru knew what he’d do next: follow in the footsteps of his ambitions.

🌱

“You’re not done yet, are you,” Hajime had asked, cleaning up the gym for the last time ever. He doesn’t mean today’s practice but he'd never had to elaborate his intentions when it came to Tooru.

Tooru looks up, unreadable and smiling. “Aw, so kind of you to worry, Iwa-chan, but I’m nowhere close to being done. You’ve got loads more to be proud of.”

Hajime smacks him for that, for his unwavering conceit and the honesty concealed between the lines. There’s something in the confidence with which Tooru carries himself that makes Hajime wonder:

Where was pride when he needed it most for himself?

🌱

When they were twelve, Tooru had missed one, two, three days of practice, on account having overworked his knee to the point of exhaustion. Hajime hadn’t known what to do then, either. He’d stayed by Tooru’s bedside, he’d gone to school in his stead, sat at their regular spot on the rooftop for lunch, making shapes out of clouds with no one to refute his imagination. He’d been a one-man representation of a partnership.

He’d seen Tooru cry plenty but he’d secretly promised himself that he’d never let himself feel so helpless ever again.

🌱

“Iwa-chan,” Tooru begins when they’re walking home, having said goodbye to the boys’ volleyball gym for the last time. “I’m going to Argentina.”

Hajime considers this for a second, trying to place Argentina on the world map.

“You’re such a piece of shit,” he informs Tooru, who laughs at this like it’s the first time he’s been told that.

“I’m…” Hajime hadn’t expected Tooru to show his hand so quickly, but when has Tooru made life easy for him? They’d known each other their entire lives and here he was, throwing Hajime off yet again.

“You’re… going to buy me milk bread for being fearless and cool in the face of unknown adversity?” Tooru asks hopefully, cackling when Hajime aims a kick at him and misses.

“I’m going to college,” Hajime says finally, paying for two buns at the konbini around the corner from his street.

They’ve known each other their entire lives, Hajime thinks, mouth pulling up into a smirk, and it’s nice to remember he’s still got some tricks up his sleeve that make Tooru choke on his piece of bread.

“Iwa-chan! When were you going to tell me?!”

If Tooru sounds outraged, it’s because he’s a hypocrite and he knows it.

“Where are you going? Todai? Tohoku? Keio?” Tooru prods at him until Hajime’s cornered into revealing his own cards.

“I haven’t heard back from them yet… but I’m going to California. To America.”

He resists the urge to throw up. College has always been a distant, looming threat but lately he’d been forced to think about nothing but admission forms and transcripts and statements of purpose. He’d managed to narrow down a list of places he wouldn’t mind going to, and he’d been glad—moments before clicking the submit button—that he’d met Oikawa Tooru, who’d had him expect nothing less than the best and aiming for always better.

In some ways he expects college to be a lot like volleyball. There’s the mind-numbing amount of effort, there’s the euphoric payoff after the fact, and going into an insanely competitive field, Hajime is no stranger to the knowledge that it’s the strongest who survive.

“We’re going to be in opposite halves of the world,” Tooru says finally, in lieu of goodbye when they reach Hajime’s doorstep.

“We’ll catch up,” Hajime says, unbothered. “I’m going to crush you, remember?”

That’s what their partnership has always been, after all. When one of them shoots forward, the other catches up.

* * *

HE WHO WOULD CLIMB THE LADDER MUST START AT THE BOTTOM

* * *

“Oikawa,” Hajime’s tinny, exhausted voice creeps into the grey morning. “It’s four in the morning.”

“I’m leaving today, Iwa-chan,” he says, like he doesn’t know Hajime’s going to come see him off at the airport.

“Your flight isn’t for another nine hours. Go. To. Sleep.”

The line falls dead and Tooru thinks for one single second, if this is a mistake he’s willing to make and suffer the consequences of. He’s not going to have Hajime catch him when he falls this time. He’s barely going to have himself to make up for what he lacks.

Still, it’s not like he can fall asleep now, so he decides to wrap the present he’d bought for Hajime, something to remind him of home, equal parts obnoxious and nostalgic. The rice-cooker is a strange shape and Tooru’s mother had already repurposed the box it came in to hold all of Tooru’s winter things.

It plays the ABC song when the rice is done cooking, like the kind Hajime’s granny used to keep in her house back when they’d visit in their childhood, to regale her with stories about how they’re getting along. And if Tooru can’t be there to witness the vein that throbs on his forehead in sheer annoyance when he’s not around, then this may as well be the next best thing to take his place. He’s ordered his sister to let Hajime have it when he’s going to leave for California, a full month after Tooru’s departure.

Nine hours later, Hajime holds him close, not saying a word.

And just like that, after a full day and a half of flying and 12 hours timezones behind home, Oikawa Tooru finds himself in San Juan, Argentina.

 _im here ヾ(๑❛ ▿ ◠๑ )_ is the first text he sends. He knows Hajime is likely asleep, and Tooru is almost dead on his feet, it’s three in the morning where he’s supposed to be.

“All ready?” Coach Blanco asks gently. Tooru is barely eighteen, bright eyed and foreign, tens of thousands of miles away from home turf. When he’d said yes to what had seemed like the most hairbrained of schemes, he’d only played along because he knew the kind of fortitude Tooru was built of. There’s no force on this side of the earth that could stop him from reaching his full potential.

That didn’t mean it wouldn’t be hard. He doubts Tooru realises the absurd amount of difficulty coming his way. All in good time, though, for now he supposes he might as well make good on the promise he made to the boy’s mother and get some food in him.

There’s a whole lifetime for volleyball that awaits him.

🌱

It becomes tradition, after a while, to send and receive physical mail. There’s a strange comfort in seeing a physical reminder in the mail when he knows Tooru is asleep.

They’re both immensely busy people, more so than Hajime had imagined. They try and call but there’s a distance now, both physical and emotional. They try, though, and it’s like the universe is slowly backing them into the corner.

Today’s postcard is a touristy watercolour affair and Hajime grins despite himself. It’s a nature study, of rocks and the spring that wells into a river, flowing outside the frame. On the back, Tooru says he’s made it onto the team, he brags a little but he’s still a benchwarmer, Hajime knows, and is willing to call him out the next time they Skype. There’s a doodle of a volleyball and a complaint about how they’re due to visit Brasil soon and he’s not sure if he’s going to have time to buy enough sunscreen for the trip.

He puts it away when his menace of a rice cooker reminds him his dinner is ready, equal parts insufferable and efficient, much like someone else he knows. He shoots a message he’s been itching to send all day and attaches a selfie of what he hopes is of epically evil proportions.

He can’t wait for Tooru to wake up and see it.

“IWA-CHAN, IS THAT USHIWAKA? WHY ARE YOU WITH HIM?!” The sound hits him before Tooru is fully in the picture and it’s hilarious how clearly red in the face he is about this whole situation.

“I met him at the place I was going to intern at. His father is the guy who runs the mentorship program,” Hajime explains, marveling again at how small their world is. “He happened to be there and it’s not like I could say no. He was basically helping me out just by knowing my name.”

“Ugh,” Tooru says, rolling his eyes. It’s as dramatic as ever, but Hajime knows it’s a practiced huff of put-upon exasperation and little else. “Tell me about your internship and not a single word about Ushiwaka, got it?”

So Hajime does, and elaborates a little on what he wants to do, subconsciously holding twelve year old Tooru’s knee in his mind’s eye. The white of the knee brace has never left the two places it’ll always be: on Tooru’s knee and in Hajime’s conscience. Sports Medicine and Therapy is what his program is called, he says, and to be able to work alongside the Polar Bears and Coach Utsui is like a dream come true.

“Where’s Irvine, again?” Tooru asks, likely googling it again, “I can never tell apart all these places, Iwa-chan. Why did you move around so much? Wait, is it close to the sea? Are you going to the beach?”

In return, he hears all about the training camp Tooru’s going to with a few other members of the team, and how Hajime can hear the excitement that he’s trying to keep from bleeding into the conversation. Tooru sticks his tongue out when he’s reminded about the sunscreen and they finally call it a night then. It’s already past Tooru’s sensible national level professional volleyball player bedtime and Hajime has yet to finish filling out some reports for school.

Hajime lingers over the silence, sometimes. Over the vast stretch of ocean that separates them. Over the singular strip of land that connects the north and the south americas. Over how that was like volleyball, too. They’re still connected, in their tiny world, two people and thousands of kilometres big.

Two weeks later, Hajime walks out of campus to grab a quick lunch and nearly drops his phone in surprise. Tooru is already the weirdest person Hajime knows but clearly here’s someone who comes a close second, and it really shouldn’t have come as a surprise. He’s got the same crazy volleyball sixth sense and if Hajime cracks a fond smile at Hinata Shouyou sticking his tongue out, leaning against Tooru against the bright gold sands of Rio’s finest beaches, there’s no one out here to call him out on it.

* * *

YESTERDAY YOU WERE THE DEFEATED. WHAT HAVE YOU BECOME TODAY?

* * *

“Oikawa-senshuu, we’re so pleased to have you here. It’s a big day so we’d like to hear a few words you have to say about the match today.” A microphone is shoved his way and he smiles, all charm and calm.

“I’m happy to be here,” he says in perfect japanese. “It feels like home, to be honest.”

They’re warming up when Tooru sees him. It’s been years, really, since they’d last seen each other in person, but Tooru would recognise him anywhere, if not by face, then by sense.

“Iwa-chan!” he calls out, knowing fully well the chaos that will descend.

The murmurs of ‘Iwa-chan? Is that Toto’s Iwa-chan?’ from his teammates does nothing to stop the abundance of joy in seeing In flesh and blood, instead of in pixels. Hajime turns red and frowns at him and Tooru knows there will be a proper reunion later.

“It’s great weather today,” Tooru tells his teammates, with a different smile than the one he’d given the reporters, and he’s right: pale, think clouds like foam over the scorching blue summer skies. “It’s great weather to strike a family quarrel.”

His teammates laugh at that, without an inkling of the fire and brimstone Tooru was forged in, in the fires of losses in Miyagi’s high school volleyball matches. In the streets of San Juan. in the eyes of Japan’s finest.

The whistle blows.

Tooru’s serve--the jump serve that’s been his weapon against the world since he was fourteen.

Today is his moment.

🌱

Hajime texts him two days later.

“I was so sure you wouldn't show,” Tooru drawls mockingly.

“We just met after, what--half a decade? And this is how you greet me?” The annoyance is put upon and it melts away just as easy.

“You made me wait so long in the sun, Iwa-chan, I’ll catch so many freckles and it’ll be impossible to get recognised back home!” Tooru complains.

Hajime’s heart tightens in his chest every time Tooru calls San Juan home. Like how, for him, Tokyo is more home than Sendai.

They walk down the path along the river, passing by the landmarks of childhood--the deserted park they used to practiced their receives at, the stretch of sidewalk they used to race along as warm-up to the warm-ups at practice in high school, the konbini Tooru would buy his daily supply of milkbread from.

Tooru informs him about how his team is dying to meet his ‘Iwa-chan’ and he’s booked for Friday night, no questions, comments or concerns allowed. Hajime snorts at that and talks about work and tells him to drop by to visit.

“Why would I do that?” Tooru asks, scandalised.

“Because you’re not twelve anymore?”

Tooru sticks his tongue out at that. There’s so much to catch up on, small news they haven’t had time to exchange in between the big ones they’ve exchanged over their limited Facetime sessions and two-minute text conversations.  
They’ve unwittingly taken the route they used to take back home after practice and they come to a stop, finally, at Hajime’s, like muscle memory.

“Come on,” Tooru says after a beat of silence, holding out his hand for Hajime like he used to when they were younger. “We’re eating lunch at mine.”

Hajime snorts. “Yeah, I know. Your mom texted me and told me not to let you buy snacks on the way.”

Tooru makes an offended noise, like it’s the first time Hajime has betrayed him, letting him know that’s the meanest thing you’ve said, Iwa-chan, and after five entire years of not seeing your favourite person ever? I have feelings and they’re hurt!

He takes Tooru’s outstretched hand. It feels comfortable. It feels like home.

He takes a deep breath and exhales. And it feels like home.

**Author's Note:**

> the lines in capitals are, in order, from haikyuu!! manga chapters 368, 370, 211, and 402.
> 
> as always, my show of appreciation to bwch for putting up with me and to saz for letting me steal her works in return for various nefarious enablings. 
> 
> thank you for reading!


End file.
